IN SUVA AND MBAU
Generally speaking, the islands, both coral and volcanic, lying east of
the 180th Meridian in the Pacific are almost perfectly healthy, while
those to the west of it incline to the breeding of a number of more or
less virulent forms of malarial fevers, a circumstance principally due
to the fact that the eastern islands, as a rule, have better natural
drainage and are more exposed to the full sweep of the Trade-wind. The
big island of Viti Levu, the seat of British government in Fiji, is not
an exception to this rule. It is beautiful in spots, even attaining
to real scenic grandeur among the high mountains of the interior;
but its coast is a monotonous succession of intricate barrier reefs
and mangrove swamps. Suva is, perhaps, the best location available
for a capital under the circumstances, but the town in the hands of
almost any other nation than the British would be a fearful pest-hole.
As it is, strict attention to drainage and sanitation has made it
comparatively healthy, though to no such degree as any of the capitals
east of the dividing meridian.
Fiji is the meeting and mingling point--the melting-pot--of the two
diverse races of the eastern and western islands of the South Pacific.
While probably of the same ethnic origin, the race which inhabits
the Hawaiian, Marquesan, Society, Tonga, Friendly, Samoan, and
other groups of the eastern division of the South Seas--the pure
Polynesian--is as different, mentally and physically, from the
Melanesian or Papuan type of the New Hebrides, Solomons, New
Britains and New Guinea as the Mongolian is from the Ethiopian.
Each race seems to reflect the physical environment in which it has
been cradled. The Polynesian--especially where he has been little
subject to Caucasian influence, as in Samoa--is as bright, attractive
and as fair to look upon as the islands of enchantment that give him
birth. The Melanesian--kinky-haired, black of skin, sullen and fierce
of disposition--is the incarnation of the fever-haunted mangrove glades
through which he leads his murderous forays. The Fijian, in whose
veins courses the blood of the two races, has certain of the physical
and mental qualities of both. Generally speaking, however, he seems
to have bred truer to his sinister Papuan forbears than to the
lightsome Polynesian. Magnificent physical specimen, clever builder
and brave warrior that he is, there is little in the Fijian of the frank,
kindly, open-heartedness which draws one so irresistibly under the
spell of the pure Polynesian. The enchantment and the glamour of the
South Seas--how often those words are on one's tongue in Samoa and
Tahiti!--like their salubrity, are confined to the east of the "Line of
Night and Day." Absorbingly interesting are the islands and the natives
of the western groups, but their appeal is to the head, not to the heart.
Forty years ago the Fijis were in a completer state of savagery than
are the New Hebrides and Solomons today. Every village was at war with
its neighbour, the victims falling in the tribal fights invariably
being eaten; war canoes were launched over human bodies as rollers, a
man's skull was placed at the base of every post of a new temple, while a
custom--not unlike the East Indian one of _suttee_--was responsible for
the strangling of all of a dead chief's widows to set their spirits free
to accompany him on his journey. Every party landing from foreign ships
had been attacked from the time of the early navigators. Among those
thus set upon were a number of American sailors who were killed and
eaten early in the last century, this incident being responsible for the
visit of the first Fijian to the United States, the hardened old
cannibal, Vendovi, who was brought by the corvette, _Vincennes_, to
Hampton Roads to stand trial for inciting the offence.
Most of the first missionaries who ventured into Fiji also went
into the cooking pots, and it was not until the early 7O's that
the Wesleyans, whose nerve must have equalled their faith, became
sufficiently well established to get the ear of King Thakambau. The
conversion of this powerful ruler soon followed, the first and most
important result of which being the ceding of the group--he had offered
it to the United States in 1869--to Great Britain. As a token of
his fealty Thakambau sent to Queen Victoria his favourite war club,
hitherto, as he naïvely put it, "the only law in Fiji." This club, with
the monarch's great _kava_ bowl, is preserved in the British Museum.
The Christianization and pacification of the Fijis went on side by
side, and within two decades there was a mission and a missionary in
every village of the group, while a white man's life was as safe in
the wilds of Vita Levu or Taviuni as in Sydney or London. For the last
twenty years the end of the missionaries' endeavour has been to bring
the somewhat precariously converted natives to a fuller comprehension
of the meaning of Christianity, while the government has built roads,
established a large and efficient native police force and encouraged
agriculture to such good effect that Fiji ranks second only to Hawaii
among the Pacific islands as a sugar producer and also figures
extensively as an exporter of copra and fruit.
[Illustration: FORTY YEARS AGO THE FIJIS WERE IN
A COMPLETE STATE OF SAVAGERY]
[Illustration: A FIJIAN HEAD HUNTING CANOE]
The transformation of the Fijis from cannibalism to a condition
of peacefulness and prosperity has been one of the most striking
achievements of its kind in the history of colonial endeavour. Just
how much of the credit is due to the missionary and how much to that
other quiet, unassuming bearer of the "White Man's Burden," the British
official, it would be hard to determine. Popularly, on account of the
spectacular nature of his early campaigns which culminated in the
conversion of the terrible Thakambau, the honours are given to the
missionary, which, like most popular verdicts, is not quite fair.
To the British colonial official--to any colonial official of the right
stamp--the patient coaxing of the
"new-caught sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child"
out of the darkness of their "loved Egyptian Night" is all in the
day's work. His maintenance in the field, however, is not dependent
upon funds raised by subscription, as in the case of the missionary,
and an appeal to popular sympathy is, therefore, unnecessary. For the
missionary, to whom the awakening of interest in his successes means
more money to carry on his work, publicity is only good business. It
is for this reason that the missionary, rather than the no less deserving
official, is associated in the popular mind with the reclamation of Fiji.
There is honour enough, and to spare, for both workers of the wonder
which has been wrought; but it is meet that the quiet, earnest,
intelligent efforts of the government official should not be overlooked.
The Fijian is too much of a Polynesian to take kindly to work under the
new régime, so that, with 100,000 or more of him sitting idly about
in the shade of the coco palms, it has been necessary to bring the
plantation labour from the New Hebrides, Solomons, New Guinea and
even British India. At first the blacks of the westerly islands,
recruited by more or less responsible agents who induced them to
contract to work for a term of years at so much a month, were the
mainstay of the plantations, but for the last twenty years the
industrious Hindu coolie, indentured at a wage equivalent to from
four to seven dollars a month, has been employed almost exclusively.
The passing of the Melanesian black on the plantations of Fiji and
Australia marks the finish of one of the most picturesque, if also one
of the cruelest, traffics in the history of the South Pacific, that of
"black-birding" or labour-recruiting.
Although the Insular Government makes a great point of maintaining all
the ancient tribal observances in its relations with the Fijians, not
many of the old customs and ceremonies have survived. Internecine wars
are, of course, things of the past, and even when a fight is started up
between a couple of mountain villages, it is the musket and not the war
club that decides with which party the honours shall rest. The _meke-meke_
or dance--especially that of the women--has not had the vitality to
survive the hostility of the missionaries, white and black, though on
great occasions, such as the wedding of a chief or a reception to the
Governor, some of the ancient war measures are trod by a squad of men. It
is a good deal as I heard the captain of a British cruiser on the
Australian station put it--"The Fijian has altered scarcely less than the
Tahitian under his contact with the white man; only with the latter it
has been a case of 'too much French official,' and with the former 'too
much missionary.'"
However, the Fijian stood in need of a good deal of making over before
his islands were safe for a white man to live in, and even if most of
his picturesqueness departed with his deviltry, the balance is still on
the right side of the ledger and in favour of the missionary.
The Fijian woman has neither the good looks, the good manners nor the
good nature of her Samoan or Tahitian sister. Her lack of amenity is
largely due to the fact that her lord and master, in his treatment
of her, is more of a Papuan or African than a Polynesian. Such
work as is done in the village--mostly fishing and a little crude
cultivation--falls to the lot of the women, probably as a survival of
the days when the men spent all of their waking hours engaging in or
repelling forays. She is always kept in the background when visitors
are present and, probably as a consequence of generations of restraint,
has none of the natural graces of the woman of pure Polynesian stock.
The suppression of the Fijian woman is especially remarkable in the
light of the fact that, through some caprice of Nature, males
considerably outnumber females in the group, a condition which, in
almost every other similar instance on record, has enhanced the power
and prestige of the latter sex. Why it has failed to do so in Fiji is
as unexplicable as the condition itself--the predominance in numbers
of men in a group of islands which has been one of the worst hot-beds
of internecine warfare the world has ever known.
This excess of men in Fiji--the fact that there are not enough women
to "go round"--proved one of the most troublesome factors in the
pacification of the islands, and in keeping them quiet once that
pacification was accomplished. A young warrior without a wife, and
with no prospect of getting one save in a foray, is the equal as an
inciter of trouble of a deposed Latin American president. Such a one
had no wife to lose in an intertribal war, while there was always a
chance that he might emerge from such a struggle in full, if transient,
possession of that supreme desideratum. The enlistment of many of these
restless "left-overs" in the "A. N. C.," the Armed Native Constabulary,
has been the best expedient possible under the circumstances. A gun and
uniform do not take the place of a wife, however (though, as has been
proven, they often are the short cuts to getting one at the expense of
some one else), and the problem is going to be a troublesome one until
nature equalizes the disparity of sexes by increasing the birth rate of
girls, or an interval of intertribal wars supervenes to cut down the
excess of men.
The Fijians are less expert in the building and handling of boats than
the Samoans, The craft most favoured is of the catamaran type,
consisting of two canoes joined by a platform, or occasionally, a
single canoe with a platform built on the outrigger. These affairs,
while comparatively seaworthy, are of little use for sailing and very
difficult to paddle with any speed. The whaleboat, so common in
Samoa, is rarely seen in Fiji. Most of the interisland voyages are
undertaken in clumsy sloops, though occasional runs with the wind
are made with the primitive mat-sailed catamarans.
* * * * *
There is not much to please the eye about Suva harbour, but it is deep
and safe, and the loss of shipping there in hurricanes rarely proves
so complete as in Tahiti or Samoa. The storm through which _Lurline_
passed en voyage from Samoa destroyed several houses in the town and
wrought great damage on the outlying plantations, but the loss in the
harbour was limited to a few carelessly-moored native sloops which were
piled up on the beach. Suva, both on land and water, is far better
prepared than the island ports to the east to meet these heavy blows,
nearly all of the houses being strongly guyed with steel cables, while
numerous securely anchored buoys in the bay give shipping a fair chance
to ride out the storms in safety.
Socially, Suva is more developed than the French or other South Pacific
island capitals, and one dropping in for afternoon tea at the Fiji
Club or Government House might easily imagine himself in Cape Town,
Hongkong, Colombo, or one of a dozen other outposts of the British
Empire. The Briton's first move in colonization is to make his seat of
government a bit of old England; to say that he has succeeded in Suva
means much, both as to the magnitude of the work accomplished as
well as to the attractiveness of the life there.
Sir H. M. Jackson, K.C.M.G., the Governor of Fiji, had left for his new
post in Trinidad shortly before our arrival in Suva, the place being
temporarily filled by the Chief Justice, Sir Charles Major, by whom
we were pleasantly entertained. Colonel Leslie Brown, the American
Consular Agent, proved a most agreeable gentleman, as did also his
business partner, the Honourable Arthur Joske, to both of whom we
were indebted for much kindness.
H.M.S. _Clio_, Captain Wilkins, arrived in Suva during our stay and
proved good company for _Lurline_. This smart little gunboat was
in the South Pacific on what appeared to be a sort of roving
commission, the principal object of which seemed to be the blowing
up of a troublesome rock that was somewhat indefinitely located off
to the northeast. At one of our dinner parties Captain Wilkins
challenged us to sail a cutter from _Lurline_ against that of the
_Clio's_. The Commodore promptly accepted, and the race was
contested on the first of July. Well handled by Victor and Gus, our
boat secured a good lead on the run to the buoy at the outer reef,
but in the beat home, owing to the faulty adjustment of a
detachable keel borrowed from _Clio_ for the occasion, made heavy
leeway, lost all she had gained, and finished a poor second.
I spent most of our stay in Fiji on a visit to Mbau, the ancient native
capital, a guest of the distinguished Roku Kandavu Levu. The trip by
launch, horseback and canoe is a somewhat arduous one, but well
worth the trouble, as this little island is one of the most picturesque
and historic spots in the South Pacific. It was here that the great King
Thakambau, who ceded the group to the British, made his headquarters,
and the beautiful village still contains many evidences of its former
greatness. Thakambau's great war canoe, a huge double dugout over a
hundred feet in length, its shattered sides carefully protected from the
ravages of the elements by a regularly-renewed shed of palm leaves, is
still religiously preserved on the leeward beach. It is this canoe which
history records was, whenever possible, launched over live human
bodies as rollers, one division of the king's army being kept continually
on the foray to provide the wherewithal. The body of the king, who died
in 1883 after enjoying an annual pension of fifteen hundred pounds for
a decade or more, rests under a tall shaft of marble on the top of a hill
in the centre of the little island and, not unfittingly, in the shade of
the Wesleyan mission church.
[Illustration: "_Lurline's_ CUTTER FINISHED A POOR SECOND"]
[Illustration: "THAKAMBAU'S GREAT WAR CANOE, OVER A
HUNDRED FEET IN LENGTH, FORMERLY LAUNCHED OVER
HUMAN BODIES"]
The Roku Kandavu Levu, a most attractive young man whom I saw more
of later in Suva, left on a journey up the Rewa on the evening of my
arrival, but not, however, before telling the Mbuli or headman to
give me the "freedom of the city" and turning me over to a couple of
young British madcaps, who had been his guests for a fortnight, with
instructions to "keep the ball rolling." I could not have fallen into
better hands. The Honourable Bertie W----, whom I have since learned
has only one invalid brother between himself and the succession to a
baronetcy, had been sent to the Antipodes by his noble father because
he had allowed the charms of a young lady of the Gaiety chorus to
interfere with his pursuit of knowledge at Cambridge. A month of good
behaviour in Sydney was being rewarded by a tour of Fiji, on which was
officiating as cicerone young Mr. Tom B----, the son of a prominent
attorney of Suva, and a lad after the Honourable Bertie's own heart.
These two spirited youngsters--both were under twenty--had started
out from Suva to "study native life at first hand" in the wilds of
the interior of Vita Levu, but the Roku Kandavu Levu, who could not
let himself miss the chance for practice with two crack cricketers go
by--he had been the best bat on the University of Sydney eleven a few
years previously--contrived to make his capital so pleasant for them
that they had lost interest in the savages of the mountain country and
settled down to pursue their investigations at Mbau. Everybody, it
appeared, had been pleased with the arrangement but the missionary,
who, because a large part of his congregation had stayed away from
service to watch the Honourable Bertie illustrating the principles of
Ranjitsinji's famous "leg glance" for the benefit of the Roku on the
village green, had closed up the church and posted a notice in Fijian
upon the door that it would not be opened until the Sabbath-breakers
had left the island. The Roku who, from his Australian education, is
a fairly open minded cynic himself, still hardly felt it desirable
politically, as the ranking chief in Fiji, to stir up trouble with the
all-powerful missionaries. Accordingly, torn between the exigencies of
hospitality and his duty as the chief of a Christianized people, the
Roku, dodging responsibility in flight, had departed on an "urgent"
mission up the river, telling his guests to continue their "studies" as
long as they desired and leaving word for the villagers not to let their
love of sport interfere with their devotions. It was at the beginning of
this "interregnum" that I arrived.
The natives of Mbau, probably as a result of the example set by
their distinguished chief, are very fond of all kinds of outdoor
sports, which fact inspired my young friends with the idea of holding
a field day in which the white race should compete against the
brown. The honour of the Caucasian was to be upheld by Bertie, Tom
and myself, while that of the Polynesian would be maintained by a
selection from all of the Fijians on the island. Most of the first
day was spent arranging the program. The natives wanted a tug-of-war,
but our captain, Bertie, realizing that we lacked the "beef" for
such a contest, agreed to its inclusion only in the event that the
missionary--with whom South Sea life had agreed so well that he weighed
in the vicinity of 250 pounds--could be induced to pull with us for the
honour of his race. Needless to say the event was not scheduled. We did
the sporting thing, however, by offering to oppose an eleven made up
of the island's best cricketers with a "team" composed of Bertie, Tom
and myself. The other events decided upon were two swimming races, two
sprints, one canoe race, shot-put, throwing the cricket ball, broad and
high jumps, a "modified Marathon" and three boxing contests.
The second day we spent in practice and "elimination trials" to decide
in which particular events each of us was best fitted to compete, as,
except for the cricket, the finals were to be strictly "man-to-man"
affairs. Luckily, our respective abilities dove-tailed perfectly. Tom was
an adept at swimming and no novice in handling the outrigger canoe,
while his splendid endurance made him a natural if inexperienced
distance runner; Bertie had given promise of developing into one of the
fastest amateur sprinters in England before the Gaiety girl supervened,
and had recently bested some of the speediest men in Australia at the
"hundred" and "two-twenty"; my old varsity events, the shot-put and
broad jump, and the remnants of a fair throwing arm, made me our
logical representative in the remaining contests we had scheduled.
Each of us was slated to box in his respective class--Bertie in the
light-weight, Tom in middle-weight, and I--because I weighed a "good
fourteen stone and looked jolly fit"--in the heavy-weight.
The elimination trials of the Fijians were not so simple a matter. They
fought and wrangled from morn till dewy eve and on into the moonlight
in an earnest endeavour to pick the likeliest representatives to uphold
the honour of their race. The final list was not handed to Bertie till
near midnight, and even then, as became apparent next day, was not
quite complete.
Every soul on the island except the immediate members of the
missionary's household was on the beach in the morning when the canoe
race was started, and, what with beaten war drums and coal oil cans,
gave an exhibition that would have made a varsity rooting section look
like a Quaker meeting when their man paddled across the line an easy
winner. Tom made a good fight but his opponent had too many generations
of training behind him. Bertie evened up things by sprinting the length
of the village green a house-length ahead of his dusky opponent, and my
victory in the broad jump gave us a temporary lead. In the high jump we
were weak, and Bertie, who had never essayed the event before, was no
match for a slender Fijian youth who had been to school in Auckland.
Tom, who was really a marvel at the Australian "crawl," had his revenge
in the swimming race for his defeat in the outrigger contest, beating
his man almost two to one in a dash of about a hundred yards across a
bight in the sea-wall. The vanquished Fijian, who had also been picked
to swim in the race of half a mile or more to the mainland and back,
was so crushed by the completeness of his defeat that he refused to
compete again, the event being called off.
In the shot-putting contest we used an old rust-eaten twenty-pound
cannon ball which had been thrown into the village away back in the
40's by a British gunboat on a punitive mission against the natives
for killing and eating a family of missionaries. My opponent made up
in strength what he lacked in "form," and by dint of following the
shot out of the "ring" put up a mark which I was able to beat only by
resorting to the same unorthodox expedient. Bertie added to our score
by romping to another easy victory in the sprint around an approximate
220-yard circle which had been marked with coconuts along the outside
of the village green.
The last event of the forenoon was the "modified Marathon," to be
run over a course once around the island, across the causeway to the
mainland and back, and then around the island again to a finish in
front of the council house, a distance of about three miles. We had
counted on Tom to win this event handily, but the Fijians sprung a
"ringer" on us by entering one Lal Singh, a lanky East Indian coolie
who was employed by the Roku to carry messages back and forth between
Mbau and Rewa. This human greyhound sprang away at the report of the
pistol as though running a quarter, and had loped around the island and
half way to the mainland before poor Tom, winded already, staggered out
upon the leeward beach. Here Bertie and I headed him off and took him
out of the race to save his strength for the trials of the afternoon.
The natives, appearing to figure the importance of a race in direct
proportion to its length, beat their hollow-log drums and sang chesty,
sonorous war chants all through the rest hour in celebration of this
victory.
While Bertie was winning the cricket ball-throwing contest--a
competition in which he substituted for me who had originally qualified
for it--I essayed to give the Fijians an exhibition of hammer-throwing,
an event with which they were still unfamiliar. In the absence of a
regulation hammer, a network of fibre was woven around the twenty-pound
cannon ball, and into this mesh the end of a three-foot strand of
coco-husk rope was fixed. This contrivance looked decidedly flimsy and,
as presently transpired, did not belie its appearance. It held together
for a couple of tentative tosses and even through the preliminary
swings of a real throw; but when I whirled into the first circle of
what was to have been a triple turn the fibrous mesh gave way and,
while I did a double back somersault, the ponderous old missile went
hurtling through the air and banged against the side of the great
council house. The stout wall was not breached, but a muffled crash
told of havoc among the tribal relics which adorned the interior. A few
minutes later the Mbuli, who with several of the elders had hurried to
investigate, emerged with a baleful look on his face to announce that
the great _yanggona_ bowl, out of the sacred depths of which _kava_
had been served even to the great Thakambau himself, was split across
the middle from a fall to the floor.
The Fijians appeared rather awed at the magnitude of the catastrophe,
but the unquenchable Bertie, after placing his "field" for the cricket
match, called out to the Mbuli to ask if it did not seem like old times
to have the walls of Mbau battered down by cannon balls.
The one-inning cricket game was a Caucasian walk-over. The dazzling
work of Tom and Bertie, who alternated between bowling and
wicket-keeping, retired man after man with a "goose-egg," and, in spite
of the scant and inexperienced "field,"--myself--had the bewildered
Fijians all out for less than two score of runs. This total the
versatile pair, batting in partnership, exceeded in less than a quarter
of an hour.
Acknowledging that they were outclassed in cricket, the Fijians now
demanded that a game of soccer football be played upon the same
terms--a full team of them to the three of us--and to this proposal the
game Bertie, displaying better sportsmanship than judgment, consented.
Of course, after a severe buffeting which left us all rather groggy and
winded for the boxing contests, the Fijians won.
On any kind of a system of scoring we had a lead of three victories
at this juncture, and should, therefore, only been liable to a tie
by losing all of the three boxing contests. The natives, however,
contending that the winning of the Marathon was equal to a half-dozen
ordinary events, insisted that they were at least on even terms with us.
Again our complaisant captain, pulling on his gloves for the first
bout--the lightweight--waived the point and agreed to let the three
boxing contests decide the day. Five seconds later, guarding carelessly
in backing away from a clinch, Bertie left a wide opening, driving into
which with a well-timed short-arm jolt, his stocky opponent landed on
the point of the lad's chin and stretched him limp--a clean knockout--on
the turf of the village green.
Tom, who boxed almost as well as he swam, rushed his man--the shifty
youth who had defeated the Honourable Bertie in the high-jump--from the
beat of the war-drum which was doing service as a gong, and had him so
groggy at the end of a couple of minutes that the bewildered fellow
started to slug one of his own fuzzy-headed seconds. He was led off to
escape further useless punishment, leaving the issue of the day up to
the heavyweight bout, with me as the "White Hope."
The ponderously-limbed Goliath, whom the Fijians led out like a
blue-ribbon bull at a stock show at this juncture, had been kept out
of sight all day, evidently through fear of awakening a protest on our
part. He was one mass of hair and rolling muscles from head to heel
and needed only a knotted war-club to complete the illusion of having
stepped out of the Stone Age upon the green of Mbau.
"Just such a cannibal as old Thakambau must have had for a Lord High
Executioner," I told myself, and shuddered at the thought.
Of course, I knew that he could not box; but it was also equally plain
that nothing less than a charge of dynamite could have any effect upon
his iron-ribbed frame. I stood regarding him with dismay as Tom--they
were still fanning the prostrate Bertie with a taro leaf--began to tie on
my gloves.
"They've put up a game on us," he said quietly, trying to knead the
padding away from over the knuckles of my left hand. "That chap's a
hard nut, and they've brought him over from Rewa just because Bertie
was telling them that you were the champion of America. It's a dirty
trick, but it'll only start a row if we try to call the turn. Go ahead
as if nothing was wrong, but be sure and not try any in-fighting. Then
we'll at least get a draw out of it. I'll tell you about him later. Now
don't forget. _Keep clear!_"
It was with that sound injunction well in mind that I stepped out to
where the glowering gorilla was waiting in the middle of the circle.
For a few seconds we stared stupidly at each other, and then, because
I was too nervous to stand still, I began dancing around my stolid
opponent. He followed me with his eyes, owl fashion, not moving his
huge, flat feet until I was almost behind him.
"He's slower even than I thought," I told myself, and began to feel
better.
After prancing in a couple of circles without making my burly
antagonist do more than mark time to keep me in eye-sweep, I plucked
up courage and, stepping in quickly, drove for his prognathous jaw.
Without the flicker of an eyelash, he bent his great neck and took the
blow in the depths of his woolly hair. Hardly did he seem to need to
brace himself, so completely was the force taken up in this natural
shock-absorber. To sharp hooks in the ribs and upper abdomen he
replied in the same passive way, ducking his head whether I led for the
face or not. With a chest like the bulge of a steam boiler and three
inches of corrugated iron muscles armouring his solar plexus, there
was no need of guarding anything but his face, and this he did by the
simple expedient of putting out his foot-deep shock of matted hair
every time I made a feint in that direction.
"The dolt is no more than a human punching-bag," I told myself; "but
even a punching-bag has been known to break if hammered long enough,"
forthwith beginning to try the effect of persistent hammering. Scored
as a sparring contest, I would have won the decision by a hundred
points to nil, for the stolid monster seemed perfectly content to let
me circle around him and hit almost when and where I pleased. But
we were fighting under Fijian rules, which hold that the contest,
undivided by rounds, shall continue until one of the parties is
unwilling, or unable, to go on. Now and then, when I would hook a stiff
jolt in under the fringe of his mop to the side of the neck, he would
wince a bit, but most of the time he simply stood with bowed head and
set muscles and let me pound away. It may be that my blows lacked steam
after my long day of unwonted exertion under the tropical sun, or it
may be that the hulking frame, with its armour of knotted muscles, was
damage-proof as long as the jaw was protected. One thing was certain,
at any rate,--the only effect of my frenzied hammering was to tire
myself out without discomfiting, or even, apparently, annoying my burly
opponent in the least.
"Take it easy to sunset and we'll call it off for a draw," muttered Tom
behind me as I stepped back to get my breath after beating a sounding
tattoo of right and left hooks in a vain effort to jar the armoured
solar plexus of the Cave Man.
It was sound advice and I should probably have followed it had not the
Honourable Bertie--he had been brought to a few minutes previously and
was just awakening to an interest in his surroundings--cut in with
"Don't quit. Step in close and uppercut straight up for his face.
Remember you're the 'White Hope.'"
There certainly did seem room to slip one up between the dome of the
swelling chest and the fringes of the hair-mop that would do some
damage, provided one only went in close enough, and, without stopping
to ponder the possible consequences, I stepped forward and drove a
hard right uppercut, just as Bertie had suggested. Smash! My glove
landed squarely in the middle of Cave Man's face, straightening him
up with a jerk and offering the very opening for the jaw that I had
awaited ever since the bout began. I was just starting a left hook
of which I entertained high hopes, when, closely following the roar
of pain and rage which signalized the landing of my right, something
swift and terrific as a Bolt of Wrath came hurtling against my jaw, an
explosion like the Crack of Doom rang in my ears, and--I came to some
hours later to find a sedate-looking Fijian lady in sombre black--the
Mbuli's wife--massaging my bruised face with one hand and holding
a Bible from which she was reading in the other. An austere-faced
white woman, whom I thought I recognized as the missionary's wife,
was renewing a turtle-steak poultice upon one of the Honourable
Bertie's rainbow-coloured optics, while a Fijian in a long coat and
black _sulu_ was kneading out the cramp-knotted muscles in Tom's
overworked calves. The three of us were in the little mission hospital.
"The Reverend B---- and his wife have been working over you since
sundown," said Bertie thickly through a bandage. "In fact, they've
been very kind to all of us in the matter of lending 'first aid.' We've
apologized for stirring up all this jolly rumpus here, and Tom and I
have promised to leave with you for Suva as soon as you're able to
travel. It may comfort you a bit, old chap, to know that the Reverend
B---- has just gone over to set the nose of your late opponent. Perhaps
you don't remember that you landed a tap just before he hit you."
"Oh, that was what it was," I said with a sigh of comprehension,
sinking back upon the pillows. "I thought some one had been
practising with the twenty-pound hammer again."
The last thing I recall before dropping off to sleep was the sound of
singing and beaten war-drums welling up from the village green. "The
Fijians celebrate the triumph of the Polynesian," explained Bertie in
answer to my look of inquiry. "That chant is one they used to sing on
returning from a successful foray laden with the heads of many
enemies. They seem to trace some similarity between the two
occasions."
On the way back to Suva Tom told me about the Cave Man. "The chap
is probably the strongest man in Fiji," he said, "and as stupid as he is
powerful. Several years ago one of the Australian overseers at the
Rewa sugar plantation took him in hand and taught him that trick of
protecting his face by turning down his hair-mop, and since then he
has stood up against the champion heavyweight of every warship that
has come to Suva without being knocked out. Several of the careless
ones have fared quite as badly as you did, and one of them, who had
floored him with a lucky poke, he later got hold of, threw down and
started to chew to pieces. That broken nose you gave him was the
worst damage he ever received, and he would probably have started
a cannibal feast off your limp anatomy if the Mbuli and the rest of us
hadn't crowded him off."
* * * * *
The Roku Kandavu Levu came to Suva shortly before our departure and
paid us several visits on the yacht. We found him a most engaging and
likable fellow and an especial enthusiast on yachting. He is a graduate
of the University of Sydney, and in speech, manners, tastes--in
everything, in fact, but colour, hair and dress--is thoroughly British.
His yacht, a fine 40-footer which he sails himself, is the fastest
craft in the islands. He displayed great interest in our cruise, and
expressed himself as determined to build a staunch schooner and
embark on a similar one as soon as opportunity offered.
The Roku's dress is a unique compromise between the native and the
foreign. He wears the shirt, collar, tie and coat, and carries the
inevitable stick, of the Britisher, but goes bare-footed and covers his
legs with nothing but the common native _sulu_, a yard and a half of
print which is tucked in at the waist and falls to the knees. From the
waist up he is apparelled faultlessly enough to parade Piccadilly or
Broadway; from the waist down carelessly enough to suit the laziest
Kanaka that ever lolled away a noonday under a coconut tree. It was
the latter portion of his "combination suit" which came near to
causing serious trouble on the occasion of his first visit to _Lurline_.
From the hour of our arrival in Suva harbour the sailors had been much
bothered in their work by an endless succession of fruit peddlers and
curio venders who made the sale of their stocks an excuse for loafing
about the yacht. The Commodore was finally forced to order that there
should be no more visiting by unaccredited natives except during the
noon hour and early in the evening, the enforcement of which ruling
was being looked after by the mate with great enthusiasm. By the free
use of his glass and megaphone and his rapidly expanding vocabulary
of "Beche-de-Mer" English he had, to his great pride and satisfaction,
succeeded in keeping intruders at a distance for several days, so that
it was with no ordinary rush of indignation that he greeted, one busy
afternoon, the sight of a pair of muscular brown legs moving leisurely
by a port--the mate was below at the time--as they carried their
owner up the brass-railed starboard gangway, which, incidentally, was
especially _tabu_ for natives.
At the same moment that a deep-chested roar of "_Hare_, you dam'd
Kanaka!" came booming out upon the still afternoon air, the Commodore
was beaming welcome from the head of the gangway to the stately head
and shoulders of the handsome and dignified Roku Kandavu Levu who,
escorted by several prominent British officials, had come off in the
Governor's launch for his initial call. We managed to check the rush of
the infuriated mate at the foot of the cabin companionway and sober him
with some forceful pantomime and a peep at the Governor's launch through
a convenient port, but the echo of that "_Hare, you dam'd Kanaka!_" kept
ringing in our ears through the whole fifteen minutes of an unusually
stiff call.
We never learned whether or not the Roku comprehended for whom the
mate's forcible orders were intended, but if he failed to discern that
they were aimed at his royal self it was largely due to the resourceful
Claribel's cheerful chirrup of "The worthy Chief seems to be having more
trouble than usual with curio venders today. Speaking of curios--won't
Your Highness please tell me if this shark's tooth necklace which I
bought yesterday is really genuine?"